Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

What Twitter Can Teach Bloggers About Monetization [In a Bad Way]

February 9, 2009 | Feature, Making Money, Social Media

We all love Twitter. I do. I use it all day and I’ve built up connections with people using it. But, one thing is for sure: Twitter is STUPID when it comes to how to make any money. Bloggers, pay attention!

twittercash Twitter has grown a lot (biggest understatement of the century). Throughout, the question of how they’re going to make any money is discussed frequently. They are raising a little money through investors and it is keeping them going. But, Twitter is a sitting goldmine and the fact that they’re not making any real money yet is idiocy on full display.

In my view, Twitter has several ways to make money. Most obvious to me would be the “freemium” model. Obviously, they cannot begin charging for Twitter accounts as it would completely kill the network. However, they can begin to charge a yearly premium to users who CHOOSE to do so. In exchange, a “Twitter Pro” user would get things like additional API calls, exemption from ads, an increase in SMS access, ability to follow more than 2,000 people. Yes, it would be dependent on Twitter running ads on the network as well as limiting SMS access (which I’m sure costs them money).

Twitter could easily embed ads into the site. Contextual ads based on the keywords in your own tweets and the people you follow. The ads could either be on the side or (better yet) injected into your Twitter stream. As long as they don’t overdo it and and make it obvious that a tweet is an ad or not, I think it will work fine. Then, they could use the “freemium” model to provide an opt-out.

Now, I’ll go on record and say that I expect something like this to happen in 2009. It is only a matter of time.

But, what is taking them so long? And what can bloggers learn from it?

Well, the fact that Twitter is sitting on this so long is the lesson for bloggers. In other words, DON’T DO THAT!

Last week, I answered the question on when I thought was the right time to monetize. My answer is: NOW. Twitter violated that and now look where they are. They’re all worried that the first thing they do to make money is going to alienate their user base. If they had done something in the early days, the Twitter community would be used to it by now. It would be a non-issue.

So, the lesson that I believe Twitter can teach aspiring pro bloggers is:

Don’t wait around! Monetize early and don’t wait until you have a humongous user base that you are afraid will react badly when you monetize too late in the game.

If you are confused on how to monetize, here’s some ideas.

Twitter is a goldmine. It is an entrepreneurial tragedy that it still isn’t making any money. I expect they’ll grow a brain some time this year. However, in the meantime, don’t repeat their mistake.

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  • You are quite right on Twitter waiting to long, fortunitly I think so many find it a valuable service they will not shy away to much after any monetization is done. It is hard to believe that Twitter has not worked in a few monetization sources yet, and if they had they would have been seeing large profits by now I am sure.
  • Because they can search on specific keywords, it would be so easy for them to provide direct and specific ads to their users, which would surely provide them with an awesome revenue stream. I think we also need to consider, how can we monetize off twitter as well. I've had many people contact me simply by them searching different keywords I've written about or finding one of my sites and following. its a fantastic marketing tool to potential buyers and regular readers.
  • There is just one problem with putting ads on Twitter, which is that these ads can be easily filtered out using a Twitter client such as Tweetdeck. The API limit might make them some money though. Cool Post!
  • I fully agree with David Risley. It's better early than late.
  • I like this follow up on when to monetize. I do think one should get their audience used to it at the beginning, so as not to A)miss the boat or B) sponsor their own mutiny when they add in the ads later.
  • Perhaps the reason they are "sitting on it" is to wait until Twitter becomes so mainstream and addictive that the chances of losing users due to targeted ads is at a minimal.

    I honestly don't know why they are not doing it yet, but that's my 2c on the subject.

    Other than that - I got nothin'! :-)
  • Ari,
    Maybe they are telling them that they intend to start sending out "list emails" or something.
    It is a great idea to implement ads into the twitter post. they could even do it as an update from twitter once or twice per day. They have so many users in so many niches. They don't even have to have a high click through rate in each niche to explode the income of the site.
    They need to step their game up at some point.
    Junius Fullard
  • Heh, I guess I wasn't the only one who was wondering how Twitter was going to monetize. It does seem astounding to me that they have that much growth in two of the world's largest markets (English and Japanese) and still haven't done anything to profit from it. I wonder what they're telling their investors as their strategy?

    ari
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